For the mother, so majestic, so awe-inspiring; for
Howard, that handsome boy whose exuberant Americanism was
untouched by any feeling of caste; for Melton and Hubert Henry,
his brothers, those lordly striplings of a lordly race; for Miss
Latimer, who in his heart of hearts he dared not call Christine,
and who to him was the embodiment of everything adorable in women.
Yes, he loved her; confessed to himself that he loved her; humbly
and without hope, with no anticipation of anything more between
them, overcome indeed that his presumption should go thus far.
He did not attempt to hide his feelings for her, and though too
shy for any expression of it, and withheld besides by the utter
impossibility of such a suit, he betrayed himself to her in a
thousand artless ways. He asked for no higher happiness than to
sit by her side, looking into her face and listening to her mellow
voice. He was thrice happy were he privileged to touch her hand in
passing a teacup. Her gentleness and courtesy, her evident
consideration, the little peeps she gave him into a nature
gracious and refined beyond anything he had ever known, all
transported him with unreasoning delight. She, on her part, so
accustomed to play a minor role herself in her sister's
household, was yet too much a woman not to like an admirer of her
own. She took more pains with her dress, looked at herself more
often in the glass than she had done in years. It was laughable;
it was absurd; and she joined as readily as anyone in the mirth
that Raymond's devotion excited in the family, but, deep down
within her, she was pleased.
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